Chapter 53: your friend
Butcher Demon
âJibodan!â
Ferris, the fox girl, came running out of the house. She looks like sheâs in middle school or high school, but she moves like a primary schooler.
My babysitting duties are still going on. I canât believe their nerve. The nerves of this fox clan are as thick as a clammy rope.
But this time, I was saved.
As expected, I am no longer taken to the girls school, but I am still called upon from time to time to escort Ferris when she walks outside.
Today, too, I was summoned in the middle of my part-time job, and I slipped out of the Minotaur managerâs office, poking him on the shoulder, and came to pick her up at her residence. The manager sent me off like he knew what I was doing.
Ferris walks through the streets, and I follow behind, admiring her bushy tail and fox ears.
She seems to have stopped wearing her beret. I donât know why, but she must have had a change of heart. She looks prettier with her ears showing.
Thanks to her taking me here and there like this, I was able to learn a lot about the city. I wondered where our destination would be today.
âï¼ï¼â³ãââï¼ãâ»ââã Jibodan â ã³ãââ³â â?â
Ferris bought something at a stall where fragrant smoke was billowing up.
She sat down on a bench in the street and offered me a skewer of meat as she spoke to me. Thank you. Mogu mogu. It tastes like a tare. Itâs delicious!
In addition, she took something from her bag on her shoulder and offered me. In her hand was grass. I donât know what the Minotaur manager told her, but I gulped down the grassâ¦â¦. It tastes gooey. Delicious!
Ferris is sitting on a bench, paddling the air with her feet and munching on a skewer of meat, just like me.
I wonder if she feels as if sheâs playing around with a large dog. She has no wariness of me at all.
She even started to feed me enthusiastically like this. Iâm sure soon Iâll be asked to give her a hand or something. Iâm very good with my rod, wanna try?
Not only have I done nothing to make her like me, but Iâve also written pages and pages of traumatic scenes in her naive youth, so why is she so fond of me?
But this innocent curiosity of hers about me is going to be extremely important from now on.
Suddenly, Ferris looked up at me. Both of her cheeks were puffed up from the meat she had eaten.
I point to her half-eaten skewer and tilt my head to the side.
Ferris sees my gesture. She swallowed the meat in her mouth and then said.
âTapua.â
Tapua. So this is a food called tapua.
I continued pointing to the grass I was familiar with.
âMarijuana.â
I see. So this grass is called marijuana.
â¦â¦huhâ¦wait? Is this that cannabis marijuana? Seriously?
The manager has been eating marijuana all day â¦â¦.
No, itâs possible that itâs just the same wordâ¦â¦but if you ask me, this grass is very stringy and sweet. The shape of the leaves is also very similarâ¦â¦.manager is also very cheerful all day. I mean, does marijuana work if you eat it raw?
Well, whatever.
Iâve been loving this grass lately too. Iâm basically a carnivore, but I enjoy this grass like cat when eating grass. *Munching*. Itâs delicious!
Hey Ferris, you canât eat that.
I took the grass out of Ferrisâs hand, who was sniffing it with curiosity, stretching out her tongue. âOhâ¦â¦â And you canât make a disappointed noise like that.
After finishing the meat skewer, Ferris licked her fingers and stood up.
She started walking again, leading me.
Along the way, she points out this and that to me and teaches me the words. I nod my head each time.
âDrenâ yes.
âMisakura.â Ok.
âSaatafoofâ alright.
âBahtan Rikonoaregyorâ yeah, thatâs a bit much.
And with that, todayâs babysitting is over.
Our destination today is a park on the other side of town.
It is a botanical park where autumn roses and cosmoses are in bloom at this time of the year, and Ferris wanted to see the garden. She really likes flowers, doesnât she? It suits you.
And Butcher was the one who accompanied her.
The flowers are ruined.
Anyway, Iâm totally being treated like a dog here.
Taking the dog for a walk in the park. So elegant. But in reality, itâs a Butcher, but she doesnât seem to mind that much. The people around us in the park were very concerned, you know?
Iâd like to ask for a leash if possible. I get somewhat excited when I imagine Ferris with a leash treating me like a dog and dragging me around the city.
Ferris leads me on a brisk walk through the city at dusk.
As I follow behind her, her bushy tail and pointy ears are emphasized, making her look like an amazing vixen. I want to take her home and lick and groom her all night long in my prison.
â¦â¦I wonder what it is about watching Ferris in a calm mood that makes me feel strangely protective of her. When I see other beastmen, all I want to do is grab their tails and put them on the floor.
I wonder if itâs because Iâm a former member of the Fox team, or if itâs something as simple as that.
If thatâs the case, then the fox saved my life. Thanks to them, I didnât lose my mind over eating Ferris, and as a result, I have a clue to my freedom.
I didnât think that I would still be under the care of Fox after becoming the Butcher. Well, you never know what the world will throw at you.
Before nightfall, I dropped Ferris off at the mansion.
I stopped in front of the entrance with Ferris.
She looks up at me and says goodbye.
Normally I would say goodbye here, but now the pieces are in place. Letâs do it.
I point to a spot in the doorway. Ferris sees me, smiles, and says.
âFeigusu.â
I points to another place.
âLimpio.â
One more thing.
âSuburu.â
Continue the rotation of pointing to these three places repeatedly.
âFeigusu, Limpio, Suburuâ¦.. (Fe)igusu, (Li)mpio, (Su)buruâ¦â¦â
Eventually, Ferris looks up at me and opens her mouth excitedly.
â-Ferris?â (Fe-Li-Su)
I nodded.
ââ§ï¼ï¼ï¼ââã¸ããã³ãâ²â¡ããã§ãªã¹â¼âï¼!â
Ferris thrusts both fists to the sky and yells sounding very happy. Itâs almost like the gut pose of an owner when a parrot finally starts talking.
I learned the sounds of the words she taught me and connected the first letters to make a word. This is an incredibly roundabout way of talking. But thereâs nothing else I can do.
This was part of Abigailâs plan.
First, I need to get to know Ferris better.
I want to get to know her friend, the brown girl.
Sheâs a brown girl whoâs going to be the key when I remove the self-destruct control device. My milestone, for the time being, is to create a path to her. I havenât decided on the final step yet, but my mission is to have a conversation with the brown girl, make friends with her, and deliver the information Iâve gained to Abigail.
When Abigail came up with this plan, I feared that I might not be able to get invited to Ferrisâ house anymore. because of the outburst, I had at the girlsâ school just before the expedition.
But Abigail assured me that I would be invited again.
She said that in the end, I had done my duty, and more importantly, Ferris had been able to show me off in front of the whole school.
After all, it seemed to have contributed greatly to Ferrisâs status. Givaudanâs value had increased rather than decreased.
In the first place, when they invite me, the butcher, to their house or school, Iâm not considered an ordinary butcher, and it seems that the perverted fox lady has a very high opinion of me.
And so I was invited to Ferrisâ house again.
The blonde witch was right.
Iâm sure Iâll do as she says from now on.
âNow, this is where it all begins.
I point to another part of the room and start spinning new words.
âU-te-go-ru-aku-â
Ferris knows what Iâm doing now, and begins to read them out loud, connecting only the first sounds of the words Iâm pointing to.
The words Iâm trying to convey are simple. Abigail seemed to understand some of the alien languages, and she told me that this was all I needed to say to Ferris.
âBi, na, ku, â¦â¦.â
Ferris gasped and looked up at me.
It means, âI want to speak.â
Abigail said that when I say this pitiful word, it has a strong impact. Abigail said that every girlâs heart would tighten.
After listening to the whole story of Ferris and me, Abigail concluded that Ferris had developed an emotional attachment to me, and if I stimulated her maternal and empathic nature, she would definitely try to communicate with me somehow. That was it.
So she would turn to the brown girl or someone else who could use telepathy. Fortunately, the brown girl and Ferris seemed to be on good terms. There was a good chance that the brown girl would come.
I couldnât quite believe that Ferris was starting to feel close to me, but Abigail insisted that it was absolutely true.
Because all I had done to Ferris was shoot my liquid in her face, show her my heinous stick at close range, and devour two whole aliens in front of her. I also chased her around the house for days and stood by her bedside for three days and three nights. Maybe even in her dreams. I slaughtered a man in front of her eyes and pulled out his spine. In addition, I may not have been on the best of terms with her, but I almost killed her schoolmates, and almost had a school-wide public play and raw food feast. On the way home, she had to be forced to perform a shame play, as an added bonus.
It was my opinion that it would be impossible to feel any kind of kinship with me.
Wellâ¦..as far as Iâm concerned, I really havenât given you a good time. Iâm feeling sorry for you.
But the results are now evident in the pitying look in Ferrisâs eyes as she looks up at me.
Abigail won the game.
Abigail is the scary one. Isnât she really a witchâ¦â¦?
I didnât wait for Ferris to answer but instead turned back. I donât understand what she is going to say anyway.
Iâm sure Iâll know the winner of this bet soon.
I chuckled in my heart and returned to the butcher store.